Purpose:

• "Flight For Life" is a program of the Philadelphia-based Gift of Life International organization, a non-profit 501(c)(3) tax-exempt charity that funds humanitarian medical missions to developing Countries.



• Flight For Life" brings volunteer pediatric cardiothoracic surgeons and nurses from the USA to operate on babies and children that would not live without treatment. There is never any cost to the families, and the need continues to grow for treatment each year.



• Dr. Pierantonio Russo M.D., a world-renowned pediatric cardiothoracic surgeon, heads the medical team. The traveling team may also include a pediatric anesthesiologist, a perfusionist, a general surgeon, who is usually a 'fellow' in surgery, an operating room nurse, a scrub nurse, along with four critical care nurses and an interpreter. In addition to performing the life saving surgical procedures, we also train the local doctors and nurses in the complex surgical procedures.

Goals:

• We are an ambassador of good will on behalf of the USA and the West by treating children with heart disease and helping to build formal heart programs in developing Countries.



• To promote the cure and treatment of children from low-income families in developing countries who suffer from heart disease and other afflictions. We hope to do this by providing equipment, and funds to purchase equipment, to hospitals and institutions for the direct treatment of children.



• We teach pediatric cardiac surgery, but we also teach modern Health Care Management. While our missions today are sponsored, our goal is to free our foreign colleagues and their patients from depending upon continuous charity, from outside technical and managerial help, by training them and supporting them in such a way that their programs eventually become self-sustaining.

Accomplishments: